Chief parliamentary secretaries cannot act as ministers: Himachal HC

A division bench comprising Justice Vivek Thakur and Justice Sandeep Sharma passed orders on a writ filed by BJP challenging the appointment of chief parliamentary secretaries.

In an interim order, the Himachal Pradesh high court on Wednesday debarred six chief parliamentary secretaries (CPS) appointed by chief minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu from availing the facilities given to cabinet rank minister.

“We had in our reply submitted earlier that the CPS can assist the ministers and give suggestions but cannot give approval,” the bench said.

A division bench comprising Justice Vivek Thakur and Justice Sandeep Sharma passed orders on a writ filed by BJP challenging the appointment of chief parliamentary secretaries.

“In an interim order, the high court on Wednesday said the CPS cannot work as ministers, said advocate general Anup Rattan. We had in our reply submitted earlier that the CPS can assist the ministers and give suggestions but cannot give approval. As per Section 4 of the Himachal Pradesh Parliamentary Secretaries Appointment and Salary, Allowance, Privileges, Amenities Act-2006, the Parliamentary secretaries and chief parliamentary secretaries cannot approve any action of the state government, he added.

BJP leader and senior advocate Satpal Jain said present Congress government had appointed six of its MLAs as CPS, against which the party moved the high court, hearing on this matter has been held 13 times,” he said while addressing the media.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had maintained in the petition that there is no provision for the post of chief parliamentary secretaries in the Constitution and under Article 164 of the Constitution of India, not more than 15% of the cabinet can be formed in the state, which is 12 in Himachal, but after the appointment of chief parliamentary secretaries, this number reaches 18.

He said the party had submitted a stay application in the high court in which it had requested that the work of CPS be stopped. “Today, the decision has come on this application and the high court has banned the CPS from taking work and facilities on the status of ministers. Now,their six chief parliamentary secretaries will not get any facility of ministerial status,” he said.

Rest of the things will be revealed by Thursday in the court’s decision, they will have to give up all their facilities. He said the next hearing regarding this case will be on March 12.

The BJP also presented the judgment of Bimal Roy Assam Province, then Manipur Province and Punjab Province before the high court in which the decision has been given against the decision of CPS.

The Opposition BJP had challenged the appointment of the six chief parliamentary secretaries, Sanjay Awasthi from Arki assembly constituency, Sundar Singh from Kullu, Ram Kumar from Doon, Mohan Lal Brakta from Rohru, Ashish Butail from Palampur and Kishori Lal from Baijnath

In a bid to buy time, the Congress government filed the transfer petition in the Supreme Court under Article 139A of the Constitution. It has requested that the petition of Kalpana Devi vs Government of Himachal Pradesh and others, Satpal Singh Satti vs Government of Himachal and others, and NGO People for Responsible Governance vs state government and others, be transferred to the apex court.

It argued that the petitions of the State of West Bengal vs Vishak Bhattacharya, the State of Punjab vs Jagmohan Singh Bhatti, and Rakesh Chaudhary vs State of Chhattisgarh are pending in the Supreme Court and have legal similarities with the petitions filed in the Himachal Pradesh high court.

Earlier, Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu-led Congress government filed a plea to transfer the case to the apex court. But the division bench had rejected the plea. The BJP petitions said such appointments were made in Punjab also and were challenged before the Punjab and Haryana high court after which they were declared unconstitutional. Similar cases were filed in the Supreme Court from Assam and Manipur and the appointments were declared unconstitutional

Chief parliamentary secretaries have been allotted offices in the Himachal Pradesh secretariat apart from staff and the official department from the general administration department besides the departments attached. Chief parliamentary secretaries have also been allotted official bungalows.